Mitch McConnell Prepares To Give Barack Obama The Political Shellacking Of A Lifetime

Coming up next: a political Battle of Armageddon over repealing Obamacare. The Republicans are attempting to take the majority in the Senate. The Democrats ambitiously wish to take the majority in the House. All hangs on about two dozen races. Winning these races is not the main thing. It’s the only thing.

The main battleground in the fight to break the prevailing political stalemate will be the fight to repeal what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calls the “monstrosity” of Obamacare. Upon something like a plebiscite on Obamacare, and with it control of Congress, entirely depends on the fortunes of both political parties…and, perhaps, the literal health of America.

Memo to this columnist’s fellow Tea Partiers: let’s throw McConnell, our strategist, a ticker tape parade! The Obamacare fight is not a cynical exercise. It is a life and death issue. Voters care deeply. From the Republican base the Tea Party populist faction, small government conservatives, and libertarians all passionately oppose Obamacare. From the Democratic base, progressives consider Obamacare a triumph of historic proportions, and it reportedly is popular among the Democratic-leaning ethnic base.

Meanwhile, the all-important Independents who control the political balance of power are…queasy. The old system was in trouble. But is Obamacare taking America out of the frying pan and into the fire?

The frying pan was (and is) very real. Republicans are culpable for failing to provide intelligent free-market-based solutions (which certainly exist). The United States spends the most in the industrialized world on health care. And has some of the very worst health care, and health. According to a 2011 article by Reuters,

The U.S. healthcare system is more effective at delivering high costs than quality care, according to a new study…

The study, released on Wednesday by the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, said Americans pay … far more than any other OECD country — but still die earlier than their peers in the industrialized world.

The cost of healthcare in the United States is 62 percent higher than that in Switzerland, which has a similar per capita income and also relies substantially on private health insurance.